Defining Educational Games

Consider the materials covered. What is your perception of what should be considered an educational game? Explain your reasoning and provide some insights into how you developed this position.

I agree with how Chris Crawford defines a game:

• Interactive Play: playthings, fun, interactive
  • Toy: no objective (e.g.: toy car)
  • Challenge: objective, end goal
    • Puzzle: play by yourself (e.g.: Rubik’s Cube)
    • Conflict: play with others
      • Competition: *players cannot interfere with other players (e.g.: foot race)
      • Game: players are allowed to interact with and interfere with the other players.

Michael Stevens summarizes it well when he states that “games are interactive, goal-oriented, and involves other agents, for instance, other people, who can interfere with and influence each other.”

Warren et al., 2012, provided some common elements of educational simulations:

• “Simulations should model reality in order for learning to occur and have transferred to non-simulated contexts.”
• “Analog and digital simulations are fundamentally different constructs and must be treated as such in educational environments.”
• “Tasks must be authentic in order for learning to occur.”
• “Environment must be authentic in order for learning to occur.”
• “Simulations must model an authentic system, process, or activity for learning to occur.”
• “Interaction must be present and allow for exploration of models for learning to occur.”
• “Simulated models must include the rules that reflect a specific reality being taught.”
• “Simulations must authentically imitate or the model the system that instructor/designer seeks to have the learner internalize/learn.” -Feedback from the simulation must be present in order for learning to occur.

I believe that defining and educational game is as complex as defining a game. There are professionals in the industry that cannot agree on what the definition of a game is. So, regardless of what I determine in this post, it will create conflict and will not be agreed on by many professionals in the industry.

Regardless, I believe that a game requires conflict. The personality of the individual players playing will determine if a conflict between players or against the environment is needed to enhance learning. I personally believe that teamwork, shared conflict against the environment, can fuel learning as well as a conflict between players.

Rules need to be well defined to the learner. I believe that learning in an enjoyable experience ensures students are engaged in the experience. It will also ensure that students return to learning because they want to, not just because they have to.

Rules need to mirror reality to ensure transferrable learning occurs. Although the boundaries of reality allow for creativity, I believe that learning can occur with the confines of strict rules and enforce learning of standard operations and procedures.

Motivation to play and learn must be earned with engaging play and thought-provoking scenarios. That doesn’t mean they need a narrative, but learners to need to be connected to the context of the content somehow. A narrative is a very good way of doing that in many situations.

Learners must be motivated to avoid negative educational or play outcomes by putting players in win/loss scenarios. However, these scenarios do not necessarily have to mimic the success and failure outcomes of reality. Games tend to have exaggerated realities that lend for faster results, which help motivate players to come back and play.

Since games are not solitary challenges, interactivity between players helps with motivation to play. Social engagements allow players to become friends and encourage each other to continue playing and persevere through harder challenges in the experience.

Most important, the game must engage the learner and give feedback about whether or not objectives are being met. These experiences do not normally have to have fidelity with the real world, but it would allow learners to associate the objectives with reality. The pedagogical style used to supply feedback is dependent on a learner. As technology advances, learning games could build player profiles that help define the type of pedagogical approach that has proven to work best with a particular learner. Every learner will require customization to his or her needs to be most effective.

References

• Warren, S. J., & Jones, G. (2017). Learning Games: The Science and Art of Development. Springer. ISBN-13: 978-3319468273
• Warren, S. J., Jones, G., Dolliver, B., & Stein, R. A. (2012). Investigating games and simulations in educational research and theory. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 4(4), 1–18. doi:10.4018/jgcms.2012100101.